Outsider Inside No 10: Protecting the Prime Ministers, 1974-79

By John Warwicker and Lord Imbert

This memoir of the six years during which John Warwicker was seconded from his high-ranking position at Scotland Yard to take command of the Special Branch protection team at Downing Street covers one of the most turbulent periods in modern British politics. From 1974—79, when the threat of the Cold War and the IRA was ever-present, the "targets" who Warwicker protected daily, both at home and overseas, were Prime Ministers Wilson, Callaghan, and Thatcher. For good reasons of national security, more than 30 years have passed since he left his post, but the content, which includes a fascinating and frank insight into the day-to-day operations at 10 Downing Street and Chequers, and the eccentric cast of characters within, is based not only on personal memories and experience, but often also from contemporaneous notes. Despite the constant threat of terrorism that was prevalent at the time, there is a touch of Yes, Prime Minister that runs through the narrative, which adds a surprisingly amusing element to this revelatory book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Feb 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9780750963343

John Warwicker

John Warwicker is an author and historian.

Book preview

For Ann

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The late Detective Superintendent Arthur Smith, Special Branch, kindly gave permission to display the images taken privately on the Scilly Isles and elsewhere when we were serving with Harold Wilson. Thanks to other, later colleagues at No 10 – Colin Colson, Peter Smither, Ian Brian and Ray Parker – for forming a close-knit, well co-ordinated team during sharp-end, often dangerous and always anxious years, and now for their valued co-operation and sure memories. Commander John Howley, former head of Special Branch, is thanked for authorising publication of this manuscript.

Morvyth and Charles Seeley of Rendham in Suffolk unhesitatingly devoted their time and literary expertise on my behalf. Their advice, experience and encouragement proved invaluable in areas of the publishing business not previously well known to me. Their help provided the means of avoiding many obstacles which might otherwise have proved seriously obstructive.

Raymond Carter provided reliable research into targeted episodes of modern political history, where the my failing faculties created log jams. His balanced assessments often provided useful background to otherwise trivial memories. Captain Barbara Culleton, TD, gave a great deal of her time to proofread the draft, often under difficult circumstances. Her attention to detail and fine knowledge of English usage made a major contribution to the reduction of my workload, which often seemed infinite. Barbara Howard also kindly surveyed the manuscript and offered valuable ideas for improvement and coherence. A number of grammar-usage guidelines were suggested by Margaret Aherne, together with kindly encouragement when inspiration was failing.

My wife, Ann, for whom this manuscript was written, died before completion. It is difficult to describe her contribution adequately. While she was still well enough to take an interest, her numerous acquired PC skills were in constant demand thanks, largely, to my own inability to master modern technological opportunities. Her aptitude in preparing and re-presenting elderly and often inadequate images was little short of remarkable, and greatly appreciated by me.

On the final lap, and with papers and records often in disarray, it was fortunate that I was able to meet June Hayes, on holiday from New Zealand. She certainly helped to maintain morale and to unravel the PC chaos into which I had steered myself. Once June had returned home, I leaned heavily upon Richard Harris, who offered talented and practical help with production and systems control of the final manuscript. This proved especially invaluable, as my remaining eyesight continued to fail after I had formally been registered severely sight disabled.

When writing a book, certain procedures - such as the creation of an index - cannot usually be completed until a final draft is agreed. Similarly, requests for the provision of a foreword cannot be solicited until the full content is available for inspection. At an appropriate time I was fortunate to rendezvous with Lord Imbert (at Lady Thatcher’s funeral in St Paul’s Cathedral). We had once worked in Special Branch at similar levels, and then he shot away climbing speedily from rank to rank, eventually to become Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police – and much more. In spite of years combating ill health, Lord Imbert retained an active interest in the nation’s affairs and the progress, or otherwise, of his former colleagues. When approached, he kindly agreed to provide the foreword for An Outsider Inside No 10. I am greatly honoured and thank both him and Lady Iris.

A number of individuals and institutions, knowingly or unknowingly, have provided the images included. A conscientious amount of trouble has been taken to establish origins and copyright commitment. However, there has been a considerable passage of time since they were created and, where credit is considered inadequate, apologies are willingly offered.

The difficult tasks of last proofreading and indexing largely fell upon the competent secretarial shoulders of Jill Sullivan, a friend of many years, whose timely entry into my life after almost a decade of residence in Ibiza could hardly have been more opportune. I am grateful for her patience and skills and also to those of the numerous individuals and Institutions who offered essential help with publication and the use of modern technology. These included, from The History Press, Commissioning Editor Mark Beynon and Editor Rebecca Newton. Peter Palmer was often called upon to lift me out of the IT minefield into which I had become marooned, and so was Paul Nugent and the charity Action for Blind People, which he represents, and the personnel of Blind Veterans, formerly St Dunstans, all co-operated with the utmost kindness and willingness.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

An Outsider Inside No 10

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Bibliography

Plates

Copyright

FOREWORD

by Lord Imbert

Few of we ordinary mortals know what is happening behind the sturdy and well-guarded doors of No 10 Downing Street or who the people are who have official or even informal influence on the players who inhabit this residence: the prime minister and others who have the power to change our lives, indeed, to change the country and the world.

But one fly-on-the-wall who watched, listened and saw the human nuances and touches which had an otherwise unseen influence on those major players was John Warwicker, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch detective superintendent who, for almost six years, from Harold Wilson’s second administration to Margaret Thatcher, was in a unique position to see behind the curtains and record the domestic and day-to-day incidents which shaped the lives of these powerful figures who in their turn shaped the daily lives of millions of we ordinary folk.

This is a most interesting, intimate, amusing and readable insight into those apparently everyday matters which – put together as John Warwicker has done so candidly – shows that behind the invisible and metaphorical iron facade of No 10 Downing Street are human faces. Who else would have sheltered under an upturned boat keeping the then prime minister and his wife from the worst of a Scilly Isles downpour or been with the same prime minister queuing for his breakfast sausages in the local Co-op.

John Warwicker, in the mould of a typical British Special Branch protection officer, gives away no state secrets, nor would we expect him to. But he gives us a most readable insight into the daily lives of those who run our country and also have the power to influence world events.

A splendidly informative and amusing peep behind the scenes of No 10.

Lord Imbert

The House of Lords

PREFACE

A ten-minute walk across St James’s Park took me from New Scotland Yard, into Downing Street, and provided distinguished names to drop should I ever be persuaded to write about it.

The year was 1974, Harold Wilson was the prime minister and the public could still stand outside No 10 and point, gasp and giggle whenever they saw someone they recognised from television or the newspapers.

My mission was not a happy affair. I was about to be transferred from a posting as deputy head of the counter-terrorism squad of Scotland Yard’s elite Special Branch and moved sideways into a downmarket, pinstriped backwater. The branch had reshuffled its four-man team of armed, close protection officers at No 10 and someone had suggested my name as a replacement for the No 2 slot. Having made waves inside Scotland Yard, perhaps it was an opportunity to transfer me into no-man’s-land.

The decision now was in the hands of the prime minister, as he bustled in from the House of Commons. He was introduced by Detective Superintendent Arthur Smith, the experienced officer then in charge of his close protection. Mr Wilson asked a few, low-key questions to someone apparently hovering over my left ear. After a short hiatus I realised he was speaking to me, if not at me. It was my first lesson of life with this PM. He rarely looked you straight in the eye until he had decided – even with little to go on – that you were to be trusted. In an environment where leaks were endemic – mainly, it was said, from the PM himself – the ability to remain close-mouthed was important both for him and State Security. I was to discover the fallibility of some of his judgements as I became acquainted with his political cronies.

He nodded and marched off down the corridor leading to the Cabinet Room and I was enrolled into the No 10 network, under the unhappy impression that I was in for an uninspirational time.

Nearly six years later, and through the succeeding administration of James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher’s first year as well, I realised just how mistaken that foreboding had been.

INTRODUCTION

To work for a Prime Minister is a privilege only less than being Prime Minister himself. It compensates for the temporary destruction of one’s private life; in return for total commitment it offers continuous excitement. To enjoy it to the full, it should never be out of one’s mind that the job is, at best, temporary.

Joe Haines, The Politics of Power, p.9

Political leaders worldwide are obsessively insecure – even in stable western democracies such as our own – and haunted by the threat of losing their power base and an honourable place in history.

Within the United Kingdom their crisis may be within parliament or without. If within, there is not much the democratically committed Metropolitan Police Commissioner or his Special Branch can, nor should, do about it. But if a revolutionary tendency deploys unconstitutional violence, and appears to spearhead a breakdown of established order, the civil police could then be obliged to pre-empt or proscribe it by the use of Intelligence or counter violence. The departure of elected leaders, even legally, is potentially destabilising. When Harold Wilson resigned as prime minister in 1976, that ever-watchful extrapolation into the future, the Stock Exchange Index, sagged by nearly 10 per cent against the unlikely chance that a breakdown of organised government would follow.

The risks would be greater still if change at the top was accompanied by violence. The full-time task of improving the odds by protecting certain Cabinet Ministers (and, for broader reasons, foreign heads of state) traditionally fell upon Special Branch.

During inter-war years, Intelligence communities worked out gloomy worst-case scenarios, forecasting the possibility of disorder following an orchestrated, perhaps Bolshevik-inspired, revolution. With the Soviet uprising in 1917 as one example, the British Establishment was not exempt from these concerns. Indeed, the United Kingdom itself was sometimes on the brink during the 1920s and ‘30s.

In the event, little happened in the United Kingdom to disturb the status quo until the 1970s, but it was hardly a secret that government-funded counter vigilance was maintained both overtly and in various guises, to check upon extreme, politically motivated groups suspected of aiming at the overthrow of a lawfully elected government. It was here, again, that Special Branch – at least until its disbandment in the new millennium – worked pro-actively in concert with the government secret services, MI5 and MI6.

With the exception of members of the royal family, the prime minister was most vulnerable to assassination or abduction. Having the benefit of both a national Intelligence-gathering role and some small arms and Close Quarters Combat training for its teams of bodyguards, Special Branch was, on paper at least, well equipped to provide protection. Other politicians regarded as potential targets were the Foreign and Home Secretaries and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. For some reason never made clear, the Chancellor – who was certainly not universally adored – was not on the target list drawn up by risk assessors. Members of the royal family, not to be sullied by association with a politically oriented unit of the police service, were the exclusive preserve of Uniform Branch, although their appointed officers worked in plain clothes.

Although the traditional political right regarded the police service as an arm of the Conservative Party, and the far-out left of the Labour Party to view it with little better than sneering hostility, it is clear from history that not only were the appointed Special Branch protection officers able to forestall or prevent any major incidents against their various charges, but that they did so, in the main, with commendable impartiality. The fact is that where public officials were known to have close protection, terrorists preferred to look for softer targets.

It was not all good news for me, however. The problem was that our team was crucially underfunded, undertrained and under-resourced for weaponry and communications. Once I had been promoted to take charge, the fault lines showed just how disadvantaged we were against the escalating threat from terrorists, by overheated and over strident students and politically or racially motivated extremists.

Above all, the rules of engagement in the United Kingdom were rapidly being rewritten by the Provisional IRA. It all signaled a necessary end to protection by portly men in homburg hats and displays of bulging waistlines.

As long as danger to a prime minister was confined to the occasional, demented schizophrenic who had lost his pills, or an isolated hysteric with a grudge against the government of the day, our protection teams, if alert enough, could hitherto usually sort it on the spot. Both the Home Office and Scotland Yard were happy with low-profile cover – uncontroversial and inexpensive as it was. Even before the days when Islamic extremism was activated worldwide, it was clear to those of us in the firing line that Special Branch was not always ahead of new threats. Our experience with protection teams abroad confirmed their intense concerns, and to deal with them they developed impressive counter measures.

In General Orders for the Metropolitan Police, many hundreds of pages were devoted to the methodology of dealing with every imaginable contingency. Under the title ‘Runaway Horses’, for example, officers were still instructed to ‘run in the same direction as the horse’. Just half a page dealt with close protection. It was clear enough that the academic, desk-bound authority which created General Orders, any breach of which was a disciplinary offence, had deliberately avoided committing themselves in the controversial and unpredictable field of armed protection. If it went wrong they were not going to be responsible.

So, if still alive, it was down to the protection officer. It may be argued that while this gave the officer unlimited scope to make up the rules as he went along, he had no cover when something went wrong and bodies were bleeding in the gutter. This gave the job a special glow of insecurity. Everything depended upon minimal threat. As terrorism escalated, this was clearly not good enough.

I was never to win the battle with the British authorities and for a while we remained the western security world’s poor relations. But soon after James Callaghan replaced Harold Wilson as PM – and thanks to timely opportunism by my No 2, Detective (then) Chief Inspector Colin Colson – higher level official interest became focused on the problem too. The outcome supported our concerns; results were immediate and impressive.

Communications, transport, electronic defensive facilities, bullet and bomb proofing and administrative support quietly came our way. Plans were drawn up for new, more suitable limousines. The existing batch of Rovers were all well past sell by dates; rust was visible and interiors pockmarked with cigar and pipe ash. The elderly limos, whose underpaid drivers had only the most cursory evasive training and were not subject to our authority, were conscientiously maintained by Government Car Service, but increasingly fallible.

Home Office boffins had installed non-portable, overweight radio sets with which we could, if given time to find and dial the appropriate code for the district we were in, make contact with any police HQ in the UK. In theory at least, as long as we had a fully equipped limousine, or were in a train with a compatible radio set installed, the PM could be contacted in an emergency through this network. As far as I could see it was the only way for him to activate the four minutes technically allowed to set the nuclear deterrent into action. Perhaps there was no better than a fifty–fifty chance it would work harmoniously at critical times.

It was against this background that I entered into the Downing Street machine. For nearly six years I was able to assess many of its merits and demerits, and to be a small part of a fascinating institution – a small cog in a smooth wheel. My determination to remain politically impartial was respected. Smart footwork was often useful in an institution so intimate and personal that idiosyncrasies were impossible to hide, but it was never necessary to compromise standards, and only rarely to solicit favours. An understanding of operational imperatives was accepted by men and women whose careers would be entirely office bound. Support from the prime minister was always important, but, lest it might be forgotten, even more critical was full back up from resident civil servants, unencumbered as they were by the demands of a public image.

In return, I loyally kept most of this great experience to myself for more than thirty years. I hope that this volume does justice to all parties, but makes no apologies for opinions expressed as a result of my own experience, perception or even partial understanding. Some identities are omitted or disguised whenever the danger of causing offence becomes an important issue. I hope it will be clear to the reader that a policy of objectivity has been maintained, for I was rarely, if ever, the victim of personal animosity or malice during my term as an outsider inside Downing Street. The need for firmness in some areas seems to have been fully understood.

Three politically bruised, but physically unscathed prime ministers, survived during critical days and that was, it seems fair to claim, the bottom line!

An Outsider Inside No 10

ONE

Rule One? Keep belly full: bladder and bowels empty!

Detective Inspector Harry Gray, Veteran Protection Officer

Westminster and Whitehall are awash with history and it is no coincidence that Downing Street stands in their midst. With a wonderful heritage and some distinguished buildings, it seemed strange that, not unlike parts of otherwise glorious Greenwich, so much souvenir-shop tat and fast food was allowed to proliferate. In the 1970s, it was almost impossible to find somewhere decent and reasonably priced to eat in the locality and, without facilities within No 10 itself for anyone other than a select few, the rest of us lived on an unhealthy diet snatched from coffee and burger stalls. On really bad days, when there were no other pressures, the detectives might walk over to Scotland Yard. The canteen manageress there was trying to wean the troops away from the pies and trash diet which had dispatched so many healthy young policemen to the convalescent home at Brighton. Some never to return.

With republican sympathies, George Downing’s family emigrated to America in the early 1600s, but, sensing that times they were a-changing, he returned to Britain during the Civil War and acquired Oliver Cromwell’s blessing as his scoutmaster – or head of intelligence. Downing, with an opportunist’s eye for a chance, noted the prospect of a great future for the Westminster area, in which the palaces of Westminster and Whitehall held the seats of monarchy and government and were situated directly alongside Britain’s religious epicentre, Westminster Abbey. Perhaps he even saw a future for burger bars and tourists too but, in any event, Downing secured from the Commonwealth Parliament the right to redevelop Royal Cockpit Street with affordable housing. Those were the days when developments were already taking place, originals of which are now just names: Scotland Yard, the Royal Cockpit itself and Spring Gardens, for example.

Downing’s plans suffered a credit crunch when the Stuarts were restored in 1666 and his rights declared void. Not a man to jeopardise his balance sheet, he successfully ingratiated himself with Charles II mainly, it is reported, by deploying the duplicitous self-interest not unexpected from an intelligence officer by changing sides and informing on his former parliamentary and republican comrades. This had two effects: they were executed and Charles II, instead of giving him an MBE, restored Downing’s planning permission. Work on the construction of fifteen speculative quality town houses started in 1680 and was completed four years later. Downing failed to benefit; that was also the year he died. No doubt some surviving parliamentarians started to believe in God.

A few years earlier, Charles II had granted a site at the back of No 10, Royal Cockpit Street to his daughter (the Countess of Lichfield), her husband, his senior courtier and master of horse. A high-quality residence was built for them overlooking Horse Guards Parade. For nearly fifty years the residents of No 10 and Lichfield House talked to one another over the garden fence and probably grumbled about the difficulty of finding an honest plumber.

In 1732, the second of the Hanoverian kings, George II, offered the ownership of Lichfield House to his principal minister, Sir Robert Walpole. As Sir Robert was also First Lord of the Treasury, this very much smacked of bribery and corruption, which it probably was, and he sensibly declined the offer as a personal gift, but did accept it as a residence for the First Lord of the Treasury. Lichfield House was joined to No 10, Royal Cockpit Street, by a purpose-built corridor. At the same time, the composite unit was renamed Downing Street. It is still the gift of the First Lord of the Treasury, confirmed by a brass plaque outside No 10.

This brief history accounts for the disparity between the front of No 10 and the back. Speculative housing facing on to Downing Street is joined by a corridor leading to the posh quarters at the rear. These still overlook Horse Guards Parade. It was the posh part that the IRA targeted with home-made mortars in the 1990s, one day when the Cabinet was meeting under John Major. This assault really tested their individual fortitude. It is said that a few of them failed. Perhaps it was simply the problem of eyeball-to-eyeball contact with their party rivals while in a submissively crouching position under the Cabinet Room table as the IRA mortars exploded nearby.

‘Call me Tom,’ said Lord Bridges, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) adviser to the prime minister and second-in-charge of Private Office. ‘Everyone here is known by his first name. Welcome inside No 10.’ He turned a page of the voluminous dossier on his desk and was obviously anxious to get back to business.

‘Well. Thank you – er – Tom.’

Even junior NCOs in the Royal Marines had insisted on being addressed – preferably very loudly of course – as ‘CORPORAL!’ and I had not expected to be invited to call a lord of the realm by his first name. But Tom was right. That was the protocol in Downing Street. It had little to do with the prime minister and everything to do with the Principal Private Secretary (PPS), the focus of efficiency, dedication and morale in an often frenetic environment.

Arthur Smith had taken an early opportunity to introduce me to Private Office personnel – a PPS, five private secretaries, and appointments and duty clerks. Robert Armstrong (now Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, Secretary to the Cabinet from 1979) was overlord and he had responsibility for the efficiency and co-operative support which all the civil servant staff in No 10 were required to provide for the incumbent prime minister. He ensured, after an initial careful selection, that everyone worked to their maximum ability with a combination of energy and quiet efficiency. A mistake or two was permitted but not carelessness, laziness or disinterest. The back door to lesser offices was always open for staff who failed to match up. He was known to all as Robert, but no one was foolish enough to abuse this familiarity and mistake him for a soft touch.

The Treasury representative private secretary was Robin Butler, later to become PPS under Margaret Thatcher and then ennobled to spend a distinguished retirement as one of Whitehall’s ‘great and good’. And so it came to pass that here was the unique, elite Whitehall group of Oxbridge (Hons) – or the equivalent, if there is such a thing – often with aristocratic heritage and probably voting Tory, who were responsible for organising all the services and information upon which the prime minister of the day depended, and to do so independently and irrespective of the party in power. Personal political preference was not allowed to show, or to influence their judgement. Impartiality was mandatory and only the highest calibre of applicant got the job. Should they survive the – usually – three-year posting, these young men could expect a glowing future with a serious prospect of taking top jobs in Whitehall departments, and eventual knighthoods. The system proved its worth when, for example, Robert Armstrong, who was PPS at No 10 to Edward Heath, remained in post as Harold Wilson took over after the February 1974 election.

This admirable administration buzzes secretly along, invisible to the public and unacknowledged by the media; it should be the envy of the world and probably would be if more generally advertised.

In a way, a private secretary’s failure at Downing Street was tolerated with understanding within the civil service, where the stressful hazards of a difficult posting and the unfairness occasioned by temperamental outbursts from some prime ministers were recognised – providing, of course, there was never a hint of corruption. The Private Office task – to feed the prime minister with the very highest grade of information and to co-ordinate his programme with the party, press and public relations departments, the prime minister’s family, the diplomatic service and much more – demanded 24/7/52 application. Considerations such as unsocial hours, family demands and even minor illnesses were marginalised as irrelevant.

If you followed the delicate machinations in the Yes, Prime Minister series on television you won’t be far out.

During briefings from some of my predecessors – Arthur Smith was not among them – total detachment from Private Office was the recommendation. However, its influence both in Whitehall and with the prime minister was almost absolute, and it very soon became obvious that my own responsibilities could not properly be undertaken without Private Office backing. A decision to work in concert with private secretaries and their subordinates, rather than in isolation, soon proved the best way to live happily ever after. Reliance solely on the close support of the prime minister and the vicarious authority implied by our inevitably close association – especially when away from the confines of No 10 – was not something necessarily to be relied upon. Yes?

Within Private Office, wall clocks indicated the local time in Washington, D.C., Peking (in those days), Paris and Moscow. Profound paperwork, including drafts for some of the prime minister’s forthcoming speeches, was constantly interrupted by staff comings and goings – messengers, secretaries, drivers, detectives, clerks, curators, ladies with cups of tea – but it was wise not to hang around. Telephones were in constant action, with incoming calls identified by flashing lights instead of an intrusion of bells. Activity, often frenetic, was conducted as quietly as possible. Here was the focal point of the prime minister’s official staff, amalgamating data from other Whitehall departments, the Foreign Office, of course, the secret services, Buckingham Palace – the whole world really.

Downing Street was adapted but never custom-built for such intense activity. The secretariat was down in the basement. Paper communications were transferred around Whitehall through puffing and popping old-fashioned compressed air pipes more commonly seen in department stores. In the 1970s not a single computer was in sight. An open office for the PPS adjoined the Cabinet Room, where the prime minister might be working in preference to his first-floor study which was on one side, while that of the private secretaries was on the other. Communication was constant. They overheard telephone conversations and talked to one another to exchange information. The idea was that while each was absorbed in his own